BOU AVENUEMount Wardle
Mount Wardle is the southernmost peak of the Vermilion Range and sits
prominently next to Highway 93 in the middle of British Columbia's Kootenay National
Park. Although I had no information about ascent routes for this
mountain, I was convinced, after studying some topographical maps, that the
southwest ridge would be nothing more than an easy hike.
Furthermore, an old lookout site--Wardle Lookout as described in Mike
Potter's Fire Lookout Hikes in the Canadian Rockies--is situated
on the lower part of the ridge suggesting an easy point of access.
On 18 August 2007, I persuaded Dinah Kruze and Bob Spirko to join me for
what I thought would be a straightforward albeit lengthy (about 1560
metres of elevation gain) ascent of Mount Wardle.

Just across the
highway from Hector Gorge viewpoint is a gated service road leading to a
large gravel pit with a shed nearby. We parked near the gate and
proceeded on foot from here. Right off the bat, we had some trouble
finding the old road leading to Wardle Lookout, and we wandered around
the gravel pit for about half an hour before backtracking and spotting a
break in the trees not far from the gate. The old road was quite
overgrown and did not look particularly inviting, but it was still easy to follow.
Somewhere along this road, I started having a stomach ache that would
plague me for the rest of the day. Furthermore, I was stung by a
wasp when I stepped over a rotten log. This outing was
already turning into an epic for me!

It took us about an hour to reach Wardle Lookout, and to say
that the views were disappointing would be the understatement of the
year. The lookout site
was completely overrun by trees and tall bushes, and only some debris strewn across the ground
gave any indication that a lookout tower once stood there. Beyond the lookout site, I
was expecting some sort of beaten path, but other than a few short-lived
game trails, there was no evidence of human passage up the thickly forested
ridge. To their credit, Dinah and Bob still looked fresh after a
depressing 2.5-hour bushwhack to tree line. I, on the other hand,
was reeling from the effects of my stomach ache and the fact that I had
lost my sunglasses somewhere in the trees. We took a short break at
a cairn on the open ridge, and I felt a little better after eating some
fruit. From there, we had no trouble getting up to the south summit
of Mount Wardle.

At the south summit, Dinah and Bob were a bit
apprehensive about traversing the exposed ridge to the north (true) summit. Despite my
attempts to convince them both to continue up with me, I eventually went
alone to the north summit. Dinah, still trying to regain her
confidence on difficult terrain after a tough fall two years ago, was
quite content to tag just the south summit. Bob actually started
descending to a short but very exposed knife-edge (crux), but he decided
to turn around because he thought that he would be too slow if the
exposure was sustained for a long distance along the ridge. As it
turned out, I found that, beyond the crux, the remainder of the ascent was
mostly easy scrambling with some mild exposure, and it took me only ten
minutes to traverse between the two summits. Although I was looking
forward to reading the summit register, it was so thoroughly soaked that
all I could do was wring out some water and stuff it back into its PVC
canister. Luckily, a party from the previous year left some paper
(print-outs of "repeat photographs") in a zip-lock bag, and I signed my
name on the back of one of the sheets. When I returned to the south
summit, Dinah and Bob had already started descending because they were
getting cold. The weather was starting to deteriorate as
thunderstorms began approaching from the west.

We retraced our steps
back to tree line, but instead of returning to Wardle Lookout, we headed
down the steep south side of the ridge and followed a prominent gully
most of the way back to the highway. A spectacular thunderstorm
rolled into the area while we were partway down the gully.
Lightning flashed all around us, and rain rendered our bushwhacking
descent wet and slippery. Toward the bottom, it seemed like an
eternity before we finally emerged from the trees onto the highway, and
we still had to hike for another 25 minutes uphill to return to my
car. Dinah, Bob and I must have looked like three drowned rats to
all the passing motorists, but we were all just happy to be walking on
bush-free pavement for a change. Our round-trip time was 10 hours,
and although I felt terrible for subjecting Dinah and Bob to such a
grueling trip, I was nevertheless happy to share their excellent company.